The Impact Of Social Movements On Social Movement

Technology has shaped the large social movement. #BlackLivesMatter has been a useful and positive tool in 2015 and in 2016. In the Social Media Helps Black Lives Matter Fight the Power it talks about how

Black Lives Matter movement spread awareness through protesting, petitioning, writing formal letters to local police departments and the District Attorney of the United States. However social media is what helped draw attention to the ongoing violence against the black people. Hashtags, Instagram photos, and videos drew a broad and nonverbal attention to police wrongdoings. Social media helped as it makes up effective communities by uniting those that support the social action. “Social media keeps advocates and allies informed, as well as create a quick and easy vehicle through which to keep activists informed and how social media creates verbal opportunities for a solid change”. (Langford, Montené, 2015).

Although there was significant progress made in the 60’s Civil Rights Movements, African American lives still find themselves the subjects of racial profiling and police brutality cases. Specific incidents have brought the controversies to the public eye through social media and backlash from social movements. The cases of Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland led to the controversies and feelings of judicial injustice; these events and public outrage sparked and fueled the movement “Black Lives Matter”, which was established to challenge and combat racial discrimination and police brutality. Since then, the movement has gained momentum and continues to gain followers and validity. Social media has also been a main contributor to the cause, as the

Social movements are not spontaneous events, and they must build towards their goals over time on a series of phases and preconditions. Successful social movements rely on a number of micro and macro factors including efficient organizational structures, the ability to mobilize human and material resources, as well as effective leadership and rapid diffusion of ideas. As it will be shown, the presence of mobilizing structures, movement frames as well as suitable political opportunities combined with reactionary incentives during the Civil Rights Movement helped culminate both short and long term societal changes.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a loosely‐coordinated, nationwide movement dedicated to ending police brutality that rose to prominence in late 2014. It takes its name from a hashtag started by three Black feminist activists Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi but the movement and the hashtag are not identical (Freelon, McIlwain, & Clark, 2016). BLM has achieved national reputation through their online and offline organizing, obtaining extensive news media coverage and glowing references in music and entertainment television. Based on a horrendous incident that sparked a concern for a lot of Black people across the world, the sudden need for a social movement was born called BLM. Black Lives Matter is a national organization working for the validity of Black life and also working to rebuild the Black liberation movement. Black Lives Matter broadens the conversation and highlight the incidents around state violence to include the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. This referring to the ways in which Black lives are deprived of basic human rights and dignity. According to the article The Murder of Walter Scott, which talks about race and class, “African Americans are less than 13% of the U.S. population yet they are nearly 50% of those killed by the police. North Charleston has a population of 104,000, 47% Black and the police force is 80% white (Miah, 2015)”.

Nikita Carney’s “All Lives Matter, but so Does Race: Black Lives Matter and the Evolving Role of Social Media” assesses the role of social media as a public sphere, capable of influencing public discourse and the evolution of social media as a platform for discussing racial injustice. Carney uses twitter as her subject and analyzes the opposing discourse surrounding hashtags “#BlackLivesMatter” and “#AllLivesMatter” occurring after the non-indictments of white police officers in the killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. These hashtags represent opposing ideology about police brutality and the persecution of black bodies. Carney begins by establishing Twitter as a place for marginalized youth of color to engage in meaningful discourse about their experiences of racial inequality. Carney notes that “different groups viewing the same media coverage interpret issues of race and police violence in drastically different ways”, proving the existence of confirmation bias on social media. Millennials have

On a day to day basis African-American individuals are diminished on account of prejudicial biases. Therefore, the movement “Black Lives Matter” has been constructed. It is a network of people working together to rebuild the black liberation movement. Black Lives Matter became a hashtag in the summer of 2013, when Alicia Garza posted a Facebook status called “a love letter to black people.” This status was posted as an assertion for a distressed community over George Zimmerman’s exculpation

The authors, Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa chose disciplines with the background in communications, sociology, and public affairs. These three disciplines are not only present in this article but also represent the issue as a whole. Social media reflects communication, society’s behavior portrays sociology, and the political viewpoints symbolize public affairs. Key concepts like ethnography, police brutality, social media, and activism are all exercised in the article to help determine if a hashtag could become a field site. Research methods such as communication research and content analysis are evident throughout the article. For example, the article discusses a numerical description by stating, “during the initial week of protests, over 3.6 million posts appeared on Twitter documenting and reflecting on the emerging details surrounding Michael Brown’s death” (Bonilla & Rosa 2015). The article does not directly state any key thinkers nor key theories but Black Lives Matter founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi all encourage the content of the article and the supported sources.

Social movements have many different definitions. In his paper, Social Movements, James Jasper defines them as “sustained and intentional efforts to foster or retard social changes, primarily outside the normal institutional channels encouraged by authorities”. (CITE) In simpler terms, a social movement is a movement created by people who want a social or political change. A big part of social movements is resource mobilization theory. Resource mobilization theory states that social movements “succeed through the effective mobilization of resources and the development of political opportunities for members” (CITE). This means that if a social movement wants to be successful, they need to organize themselves so they can do things such as collect funds from constituents and elites, receive volunteers and members, and get their

For the past few years, racial tensions have been on the rise. Although many actions have been taken to prevent these conflicts from occurring, African Americans are still being undervalued by the state. As more African Americans are being turned away with little to no assistance from the American government, anger and the desire for change increased among them. When Trayvon Martin’s murderer George Zimmerman was acquitted for his crime, a great number of Americans were furious at the outcome. Three African American women named Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi expressed their view on a Facebook post titled “A Love Note to Black People” and it ends with “Our Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter” (“Black Lives Matter”). Thus, a new liberation movement for black people was born. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter rapidly spread throughout social media, bringing awareness of the struggles of African Americans. The Black Lives Matter movement is a call to action to eradicate the dehumanization of African Americans that exists in American society. With the constant targeting of African Americans by the police and the unfair treatment in the criminal justice system, the Black Lives Matter movement is a necessity to combat racism.

The BLM movement initially emerged in 2013 via social media in the form of a #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. This hashtag was created in direct response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the case concerning the killing of Trayvon Martin, a black 17-year old teen. Martin was killed by Zimmerman, a member of the local neighborhood watch, who claimed he shot the teen in self-defense. After three weeks of testimony, the jury agreed that Zimmerman could have been justified in shooting Martin because he feared great bodily harm or death. The following year, the movement grew after the death of two unarmed black men– Michael Brown of Ferguson and Eric Garner of New York City.

On social media there was a trending hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, when the riots in Ferguson began in August 2014 over the killing of a young African American male by a white police officer. The African American community made it clear that black lives did matter. They were outraged and upset by the constant police brutality against them that they believed was caused by the underlying of racism. The fact that black

Originating in 2012, the political movement known under the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has exploded in size and renown. This movement, which was initially inspired after a police officer was acquitted of all charges after fatally shooting an African American individual, seeks to diminish police brutality against African American individuals and systemic racism particularly in the United States. Sweeping the nation, Black Lives Matter has become an international movement and its influence has only increased with time. On the movement’s official website, the following was written regarding the history of the hashtag-inspired entourage, “#BlackLivesMatter was created in 2012 after Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted for his crime, and dead 17-year old Trayvon was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder. Rooted in the experiences of Black people in this country who actively resist our dehumanization, #BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society. Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes.” (http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/). The #BlackLivesMatter movement asserts that racism is still prevalent in modern society and exists not only in passive forms. Instead, racism apparently can be both overt and implicit.

One of the most recent example of this is new form of mass mobilization structure is the success of Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in 2013. Black Lives Matter began with the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin. The movement was created by activists Opal Tometi, Patrisse Cullors, and Alicia Garza to combat systemic racism and police brutality targeted towards African-Americans in the United States. In “How Black Lives Matter Uses Social Media to Fight The Power,” author Bijan Stephen serves as a guide and leads readers through the difficulties of early civil rights activists in the 1960s and how the widespread use of social media has opened doors for many social activists today. "Social media could serve as a source of live, raw information. It could summon people to the streets and coordinate their movements in real time. And it could swiftly push back against spurious media narratives with the force of a few thousand retweets" (Stephen 2015). Civil rights activists in the 1960s, during the Jim Crow South era, used traditional organizational tools

The United States has transitioned since Reconstruction to a more diverse nation. Women defeated the overwhelming behavior on what society thinks. African Americans experienced obstacles to finally gain freedom. The different minority groups movements helped races, for example the Native Americans and Hispanics stand up for their rights. Social movements helped form the United States to a more equivalent country.